Difference between revisions of "Mysticism"

Latest revision as of 08:07, 4 September 2007

1. a doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding, or of a direct, intimate union of the soul with God through contemplation or ecstasy; 2. obscure thought or speculation; 3. a belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience; 4. vague, groundless speculation; 5. a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality; 6. involving or characterized by esoteric, otherworldly, or symbolic practices or content, as certain religious ceremonies and art; spiritually significant; ethereal; 7. of the nature of or pertaining to mysteries known only to the initiated; 8. of occult character, power, or significance; 9. a person who claims to attain, or believes in the possibility of attaining, insight into mysteries transcending ordinary human knowledge, as by direct communication with the divine or immediate intuition in a state of spiritual ecstasy; 10.

[Middle English mystik, from Latin mysticus, from Greek mustikos, from mustēs, initiate; see mystery1.]

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http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Mysticism